Ever Forward: the Evolution of the 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership Framework

From its early development as a research-backed identity-based model describing the habits of transformational leaders, the 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership has evolved into a comprehensive framework of behaviors distributed across 7 habits that distinguish highly effective Transformational Leadership in real-world work-related contexts, situations, and interactions.

In this article, we share with readers how a collaborative project catalyzed B Optimal's work in leadership development and spurred the creation of the B Optimal 7-HTL Framework and Program.

Founded in Collaboration

B Optimal began work on our groundbreaking framework for The 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership in a months-long collaboration with trailblazing Travel Leader Coach Rachel Vandenberg.

As the Travel Leader Coach, Rachel empowers leaders "who want to reach their greatest potential and do it in a way that is meaningful to them." She raised our awareness to the plight of the many executives, directors, managers, owners, and the like who, despite their best intentions to bring about positive change, are not prepared to lead their people and teams to be at their best and consistently deliver on promised results.

Rachel Vandenberg's passion for helping people transform themselves and their leadership combined with her emphasis on habits of thinking and doing inspired both Tim and I to reflect on and further develop our own approach to leadership development. As sociologists, we tend to focus on interpersonal and group-level causes and interventions. Rachel's perspective led us to explore the research and consider how the concept of habits, and the principles for intentionally developing and changing habits, could also be applied to help people develop the mindsets and behaviors to facilitate positive change not only in themselves, but transform their relationships with others, their people and teams, and their work cultures and systems. What began as a collaboration to design bespoke workshops and presentations for our valued client evolved into a deeply fulfilling, mutually beneficial learning and working partnership. 

Inspired by Coach Vandenberg's objective to develop a practical set of habits for applying key concepts from Bernard Bass's Theory on Transformational Leadership, and the works of other contributors to the scholarship, we set out to create a tool consisting of the essential identity-based habits of effective Transformational Leaders that would enable and empower leadership coaches and developers and leaders to meaningfully apply the complex and abstract theoretical principles from these works in everyday practice. (Learn more about our collaboration with The Travel Leader Coach Rachel Vandenberg and the evolution of the 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership)

As organizational sociologists, we also aimed to construct a more comprehensive model, one that includes key roles and behaviors for Transformational Leadership that operates beyond individual and interaction levels, to have a broader influence on organizational systems and cultures factors. Though the research makes evident that these are essential to effective Transformational Leadership in organizations, they are given relatively less attention in leading frameworks and models for Transformational Leadership. As such, we set out to identify, define, and integrate these concepts into a more comprehensive, integrated framework for Transformational Leadership.

Our work resulted in a research-backed cohesive set of seven broad-based behavioral habits of effective transformational leaders, including conceptual definitions, and practical examples, that serve as a kind of roadmap for developing oneself and others as a Transformational Leader. These seven habits are organized into two clusters. Specifically, this included:

• Four of these habits- Be the Example, Motivate Through Inspiration, Give Personalized Support, and Propel Continuous Learning - are grounded in Bernard Bass's four factors to transformational leadership, (commonly known as the "four I's"): idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration, and build upon these concepts and principles by integrating important understandings and fresh insights based on our review of the literature.
  

• Three of these habits- Cultivate Empowering Systems, Facilitate Goal Alignment, and Enable Psychological Empowerment- are original concepts developed by the B Optimal team, crafted from a careful synthesis of multi-disciplinary research spanning decades of scientific inquiry and scholarship. These habits build capacity for transformative change by enabling and directing the 4 Habits in Cluster 1 and impacting organizational systems and cultures, resulting in transformative change beyond the individual and interpersonal levels of social organization.
  

Advanced through Ongoing Research & Development

Since this development, B Optimal continues to move forward and contribute to the leadership development space, and the framework has continued to evolve based on findings from ongoing research and feedback from clients and colleagues, as it should.  

As a result, The 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership has been updated to advance the operationalization of the framework and its components for transformational leadership and leadership development. The advanced version of the 7 Habits for Transformational Leadership (7-HTL) Framework includes behaviors that clarify the scope of the comprehensive framework and broadly describe the behaviors that demonstrate and distinguish the seven identity-based habits.

Included in this framework:

• An extensive set of observable behaviors, broken into 7 identity-based habits, and their definitions.

• Concrete examples of how competencies may be demonstrated in any work organization.

• Broad impacts on individual, team, and organization levels, based on the research. 

The updated B Optimal 7-HTL Framework serves as the foundation for the 7-HTL Program and a comprehensive roadmap for developing capacity for transformational leadership in people, teams, and organizations.

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Learn more about Transformational Leadership and the 7-HTL Program,

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